There are a lot of Torontonians who like to talk about hockey. Consequently, there are a lot of Torontonians who discuss hockey very well and are a pleasure to make conversation with. This is part of the reason I joined the Toronto Maple Leafs blogosphere, because I found myself interacting online with many intelligent members of the Leafs community.

The flip side is that there are also lots of people who talk about "re-setting the standards of a once-proud NHL franchise" and honestly believe that any team in the modern NHL will be able to win handfuls of Stanley Cups in short periods of time. These are also the types of people who believe that the Leafs' issues don't result from a lack of depth, but that the team's best players are to blame for its shortcomings.

"There’d be no better time to trade Phil Kessel," writes Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star, who seems to think that when a team doesn't have enough good players, the solution is to trade good players:

considering his excellent run of play as the league’s sixth-leading regular-season scorer has put his value at an all-time high. Don’t for a moment believe that Nonis, fresh off delivering a no-Leaf-is-untouchable post-season message, isn’t thinking hard about the possibility.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting all is sunshine and roses in Toronto. But Phil Kessel is the team's best player in both the neutral and offensive zones by quite a big margin. The limited zone entry data and scoring chance involvement statistics I've seen bear that out. If you follow @ShutdownLine, occasionally he'll post zone entry totals of teams he doesn't usually track. Kessel is an absolute juggernaut, usually going into the double digits of controlled entries. Eventually, I'll get around to posting scoring chance involvement statistics, most of which show that Kessel is very good at controlling the play in the offensive zone. He doesn't take a lot of shots that are considered scoring chances, but he sets up a very high amount and is hands down the Maple Leafs' best playmaker.

He's also on a great deal. With a year left at $5.4-million, he's cheap, and the Leafs have the cap space to surround him with one or two real good pieces this offseason and convince him to re-sign.

More Feschuk:

Why would Kessel be a smart chip to cash in? He’s a perimeter-hugging winger in a net-front league playing

Phaneuf’s stock, weighed down by a hefty $6.5 million salary, is in the tank. Kessel’s, by contrast, is soaring. Given the local wont to buy high and bail low, it’d be a welcome change for a Toronto GM to recoup a decent haul on an investment as costly as Kessel

So yes, that's what "inflated stock" means. Kessel's stock isn't "soaring". He's a good player and has always been real good, and it must sting at the sides of writers who didn't get the chance to write about how Kessel shied away from the bigger stage of the playoffs and didn't contribute. Kessel was the team's best forward, no matter what metric you use.

The kicker for me with Feschuk's article is how he suggests the Leafs spend the extra cash:

The Leafs are also certain to be among the suitors of David Clarkson, the impending unrestricted free agent with the New Jersey Devils. That Clarkson is Toronto-born and media-savvy doesn’t matter as much that he plays the wing with a Bruins-worthy heaviness and has scored 30 goals in a season.

Trade good players, buy unrestricted free agents, I guess. That strategy works all the time. Feschuk ought to have stopped writing when he says that Clarkson being "Toronto-born and media-savvy doesnt matter". He'd be right.

Interestingly, Feschuk seems to say his value is soaring, while the Star back in March of 2012 called Kessel's value "maximum". Somehow, it keeps getting higher. In January, Damien Cox said that Kessel "may be poised to struggle through his most difficult season in a Leaf uniform yet." What do they have against this player? Players that have high stocks that tend to stay high are generally quite good.

By the way, for those of you still convinced that Toronto lost the original trade, consider that Tyler Seguin is struggling to look worthwhile on the Boston Bruins' third line, had his first line spot taken by a 40-year-old, and that Dougie Hamilton hasn't played since Game 4 against the New York Rangers.

Cam Charron is a BC hockey fan that writes about hockey on many different websites including this one.

Great Article!! Kessel over the past 4 Years has been by far the best player on this team. To trade him now that we are finally getting to be a good team is just asinine. I can't wait to see this team next year!! GO LEAFS GO!!!!

Kessel absolutely needs to stay, I agree with that and good writeup. What I disagree with is the Lupul piece. He's had a high shooting percentage for two years. Although he inevitably needs to regress from this years ridiculous number, he's proven he can score and put himself in the right place at the right time. I looked through some numbers over the past 2 seasons and it's not uncommon to see a lot of good players in the 15% area (Lupul was only at 13.1 last season). There's no reason to think he can't be a consistent scoring winger. He also brings some fire, leadership and although he doesn't throw big hits, he's physical with good hands.

As they say, you win trades when you acquire the best player. You better be getting a player ahead of him on that list if you trade him, which of course you would never do, because he's the best point producing player we've had on this team since Gilmour.

Feschuk good his pageviews for the day and drummed up some controversy, lazy syntax and sentence structure aside.

Such a shame jokers like Feschuck and Cox are allowed to publish articles with faulty logic inane suggestions like trading Kessel. In contrast, the articles found on this site are head and shoulders above any produced by the mainstream media.

Clearly, that this article was designed more to generate web traffic than any thoughtful discourse about he Leafs offseason. I feel like Cox, Feschuck and the rest of the Star's staff have monthly (weekly?) rock-paper-scissors matches to determine who will write the next "trade Kessel" article. It's also ironic how they love to link Kessel to the enormous cost it took to bring him to Toronto, yet advocate trading him for similar pieces. Although, going off this article from over a year ago, it will be tough to receive a team's "best players" or first rounders for Kessel. Amazing how his value fluctuates more than the stock market.

It's like reality television. It doesn't matter if it's insulting to the viewers intelligence if it attracts ratings, because for some reason there is a huge audience for drivel. As the hilarious George Carlin said "remember how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are dumber than that."

Feschuck and Cox are neither reporters nor analysts. They want to sell papers, to lure advertisers, and thus get raises. That they do this off the backs of hockey players is parasitic. All F did was draw attention to himself and his medium, so he succeeded. This is why sites like this one are growing while the old media are dying (and so restoring to pathetic "it's all about me" articles).